Tomcat Kick Start

Along with Jason Hunter's "Servlets" and Marty Hall's "Core Servlets", hard to beat in useful tricks per ounce: servlet listeners, DAOs, URL rewriting, custom tags. Except for some errors in chapter 5 (the downloaded web.xml is missing some tags), all the examples run.

This is a decent book - I have to congratulate the authors and editors in trying to keep each topic cohesive and self-contained. However, a chapter or two on integrating with J2EE App Servers like JBOSS might have been useful. As a book author myself it is a challenge to pick examples that can be listed on a page or two supporting the topic of the chapter. So given this the choice of currency conversion example is probably o.k though for some it might look simple. Important thing is not the examples but the JSP/webapp constructs and facilities available that are being illustrated through the example. If you read CSS by Owen Briggs - he has an interesting approach to keep the reader attention on the concepts and not on the examples - the text he uses for displaying using different style sheets - "Lorem impsum dolor sit amet. ..." So some reviewers concerns about better examples may be uncalled for. This is a good book for someone who is familiar with Java and want to come upto speed with JSP/Servlets/Struts and those familiar with JDBC but wanting to migrate to using connection pooling available with commons-dbcp. I would expect such person to find things on their own after reading this book. Many time being impatient I used Google only to find tons of search results and wasted time reading crowded blogs/bbs when what I was looking for was right in the book - the best way to use this book - don't sit before the computer - finish readng a chapter and then try the examples in the chapter - it works straight. I would have preferred if the authors included ant build files with each chapter and also some explanation on how to integrate tomcat with JBOSS. Being written in 2002 it is still valid with Tomcat 5.0 - but an updated version would be timely and can also provide some information on other webcontainers. They could have picked a different cover image = it looks like a mechanical or aerospace engineering book .

I think this is a very good book.Some who wrote in were expecting A and got B. A lot of books on the computer field are long on theory and short on practice. Tomcat Kick Start is more of the reverse, shorter on theory and longer in practice. This can frustrate someone who is expecting a lot more theory.One of the commenter's says, "Basically, this book tries to demonstrate how to develop enterprise applications on pretty weak examples, and this does not help you learn how to do these tasks in a generic manner." I disagree with this comment, many people do learn by example. Lots of people don't like to wait and read and read and read, then try something... I think the Tomcat Kickstart appeals to the impatient. And the simplicity of the examples encourages users to try things. I think this is a great way to get going quickly.

Apache Jakarta Tomcat is a Java application server, the open-source equivalent to BEA's WebLogic Server. It's also the official reference implementation for Sun's JSP and Servlet technologies. As the official implementation, millions of Java developers learning JSP need instruction and practical advice about Tomcat. However, there are currently few books and limited online resources to explain the nuances of JSP development using Tomcat. Tomcat covers Tomcat4.0.3 and 4.1,the latest versions developed for the current JSP and Servlet specifications. Tomcat Kick Start starts with the essentials of JSP and Servlets, and then explains how to install and administer the Tomcat server. Further chapters discuss how Tomcat enhances application development with tag libraries, error logging, filters and valves, and more. It includes the use of the popular Apache Struts framework and Apache XML processor. Later chapters explain advanced concepts such as Tomcat security and integrating Tomcat into larger J2EE applications. 552 pp. User Level: Intermediate

The Tomcat Kick Start text is a wonderful book when one wants to setup and run a J2EE server. The text goes over Servlets, JSP, Tomcat Administration, database connectivity, etc. Everything is bundled precisely into one nice book. It's a great purchase for anyone running or interested in running Tomcat.